Capping places for teaching degrees could transform the profession's status

January 6, 2019 — 12.00am

The low entrance requirement for a teaching degree is worrying policymakers.Credit:Sean Davey

As if parents preparing for the school year didn't have enough on their plate. They certainly don't want to think that their children are being taught by someone who took teaching only as a path to a tertiary education in the first place.

The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership found that the proportion of students with an ATAR of 70 or lower being admitted to teaching degrees rose sharply to 40 per cent in 2016, despite concerns being raised at the state and federal level about the quality of graduates. One NSW university had offered places on an ATAR cut-off of 48.25, excluding adjustment factors, for its bachelor of education (primary).

NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes has pledged a credit average requirement and a new psychometric test for teaching graduates before they can apply for jobs in NSW government schools.

The Labor policy effectively sets an ATAR of about 80 and has the potential to transform teacher recruitment: firstly, and most obviously, by making it a more difficult profession to enter. But would it improve the teaching profession? Would it help our children? Or would it generate a fresh set of problems?

We are used to seeing a cap on medical degrees, with a blindingly high ATAR requirement, but is teaching a discipline that is so readily shoehorned into the uniformity of a high ATAR?

Labor says a common feature across all the world’s high performing school systems is that they draw their teachers from those in the top 30 per cent of academic aptitude.

Defenders of the ATAR concession for teachers say flexibility is essential, and assert that teachers can succeed without a conventional high score. They say that teaching is a discipline that people can come to later in life, having tackled the ''real world''. Recruiting for the regions could be stymied by a rigid system. For people taught in rural or regional areas, the quality of the teaching they received may not have been up to scratch. Should they be denied a chance? These advocates assert, rightly, that teachers should be recruited from disadvantaged groups, such as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders or refugees. A nation's diverse classrooms deserve people of all backgrounds standing in front of students.

The Sun-Herald agrees with Ms Plibersek that a teaching degree should be a first choice, not a fallback. We want to see the most passionate and the most able people instructing our children. We accept that for all its lofty goals, Labor's policy could generate unwanted complications. Exceptions would still need to be carved out, for the reasons outlined above, without damaging the integrity of the policy.

But a cap has the potential to transform the status of teaching, and the standards set in our classroom. Two-thirds of Australian universities slid in international rankings last year. In 2017, Australia was ranked 39 out of 41 high- and middle-income countries in achieving quality education.

Labor has made a clarion call for excellence in education that vice-chancellors must heed, while laying down the gauntlet for the Coalition to propose better.